Chapter 4
Chapter Four
SHILOH
The wharf is busier than usual as we bring the boat in.
I look over toward Roy’s slip and find it empty.
Oddly, I’m relieved. It wasn’t a great day on the water, and I’m tired.
Sometimes, spending time with Roy ends up feeling like more trouble than it’s worth, and today, I simply cannot make the effort.
“What’s going on?” Oliver wonders, eyeing the crowd on the pier.
“Don’t know,” Nils replies, dark hair falling over his face as he deals with the mooring lines. Oliver looks to me instead, and I shrug. I don’t know what’s going on either, but I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough. Gossip finds everyone in Siren’s Point, no matter how hard you work to avoid it.
“You guys can head out,” I tell Nils and Oliver, swiping an arm over my forehead, skin rough with salt and sweat. Oliver looks excited by the early release, glancing over at Nils.
“I’ll stay,” Nils replies.
“Me too,” Oliver agrees immediately.
I don’t argue. If the pair of them don’t have anything better to do on a Friday evening than clean a lobster boat, I can hardly give them a hard time. I don’t either.
Oliver, as he usually does, keeps up a steady stream of chatting, singing, and humming while we clean.
Nils and I, as we usually do, stay quiet and let him go about filling the silence.
It’s nice, which is still surprising to me after nearly a year working with him.
Nils and I have worked together for so long, after a single day on the boat with Oliver, I’d wondered if I’d made a mistake.
He seems to be physically incapable of being quiet.
Nils, as the flip side of that coin, says so few words that sometimes I forget the sound of his voice.
But Oliver managed to fit himself in, and I don’t want to imagine a day where he might want to move on.
A good day on the boat sounds like ocean waves, the call of seabirds, and Oliver singing the chorus of “Uptown Girl” over and over again because he doesn’t know any other lyrics.
It’s not until the three of us are walking up the pier to our cars that Dryden Roy’s Maiden Seas comes into view out in the bay.
I pause, my feet automatically stopping before my brain can decide what it wants to do.
Nils, who doesn’t care about what anyone else is doing ever, keeps walking.
Oliver, glancing between the two of us, takes a couple of hesitant steps in Nils’ direction but keeps his eyes on me.
“You coming?” he asks. Sighing, I watch the boat coming closer. He might need help cleaning up, and he’s done nothing to me to earn a cold shoulder.
“Nah, you go on. I’m going to check in with Roy.”
Oliver smiles carefully. “Okay, well…see you Monday.”
“Have a good night.”
Running my hands through my hair, I make my way over to where Roy is bringing the Maiden in. His sternman waves when he catches sight of me, waiting on the pier. I feel awkward as all hell, standing there watching, waiting for Roy to approach.
“Hey,” he says once he gets close enough for us to talk. Squinting up at me, one corner of his mouth tips into a smile. It’s a handsome smile, to go along with the rest of his handsome face. I wish I cared more than I do.
“Hey. Need help?” I offer.
He stares at me for so long, I wonder if the sun is obscuring too much of my face for him to get a good look. After a minute, he declines with a soft “No. We’re good, Loh.”
The nickname, which so rarely comes out to play, makes me pause. If he’s trying to tell me something, he’s going to have to say it outright. I’ve never been, nor will I ever be, the guy who can wade through coy signals and pluck out the correct course of action.
“Okay. See you.” I raise a hand in goodbye to his sternman before turning and striding toward my truck.
In my periphery, I see a body break away from the crowd of people standing at the end of the pier.
Walking a little faster to try and get to my truck before I’m intercepted, I groan when I hear my name being called.
I’ve got a hand on the driver’s door, metal warm from sitting in the sun all day.
So close to freedom. I turn and nod at Amy Libby, who’s moving toward me at a clip somewhere between walking and jogging. She waves.
“Shiloh! I’m glad I caught you.”
I stare at her. I go to haul at the same time every day and come in at nearly the same time every afternoon. It’s not particularly difficult to catch me.
“Yeah,” I agree morosely.
“Did you hear?” she asks, breathless with excitement. I shake my head. Putting a hand on my forearm, she gives me a little jiggle. “Ewan’s back in town! Ewan Fate!”
I remember vividly a moment as a boy, a day when my dad and I had been out on the boat.
When we’d got in, Mom had told us that Grandpa died.
I remember thinking it…sounded silly, almost. Like she was trying to tell a joke, but falling well short of the mark.
I hadn’t been sure of what to say or how to feel.
It hadn’t felt real. Right up until the moment we stepped into the funeral home, and I realized that yes, Grandpa was really gone.
Right now, I feel that same sort of fuzzy unreality.
Like Amy’s trying to convince me of something bizarre.
I’m not sure anything is more outlandish than Ewan Fate coming back to town after seven years of silence.
As though he gave us just long enough to forget him before he waltzed back in to remind us what we lost. What I’d lost.
“No, he’s not,” I finally reply to Amy, because there really isn’t anything else to say to that. I’m mostly convinced that she’s wrong, that she misunderstood or perhaps saw a tourist who only looked like Ewan. Because if he really was back, he’d come find me, right?
“He is! Staying over in the Kelpie. I wasn’t sure, at first, because the booking was done through a proxy, but it’s him!
I talked to him just this morning!” She gives my arm another shake, eyes wide and smile wider.
She looks like she wants nothing more than for me to join in with her obvious excitement.
When I don’t, she adds, “He looks great. Maybe a little too skinny, but you know how all those celebrities in California are. Everyone wants to be a twig!”
I don’t know how to respond. I truly have no idea what all those celebrities in California want to look like.
Ewan didn’t use to be skinny, though. Lanky, maybe, with narrow hips and a long torso.
But he was broad-shouldered. He had strong legs.
I remember very vividly the shape of those thighs—wet swim trunks clinging to curves and lines I hadn’t seen before and didn’t have the imagination to dream up.
I shake my head, because maybe she really is mistaken.
Maybe this skinny Ewan look-alike is nothing more than a pale comparison to the big, beautiful, strong Ewan Fate I remember.
When I don’t provide the kind of reaction she’s looking for, Amy finishes with a “Well, anyway, I just thought you’d like to know so you don’t get blindsided.”
“Thank you,” I reply, unsure of what I’m thanking her for. It’s strange that my old friend has been even more in my thoughts than usual, and now this. I wish this week would end already. I wish it were already Monday, and I didn’t have to spend two days pretending to relax.
I’m antsy on the drive back home. I wish Amy hadn’t come up to me.
Now, the weekend—which I’d already not been looking forward to—will be nothing but me floating around my house, thinking myself into knots about Ewan.
I should probably just go find him. If it even is him.
The likelihood of this man being a doppelg?nger is far more likely than Ewan being back in town.
Thirty minutes is all it takes for me to drive from the harbor to my house.
Thirty minutes for me to convince myself that yes, Amy was wrong, Ewan is not back in town, and why would that bother me even if he was?
I like Ewan. I do not have a problem with Ewan.
I miss Ewan. Thirty minutes, unfortunately, is not nearly enough time to deal with that, however, so I cut myself off there as I turn onto my sand-covered drive.
Less than a minute later, all that internal convincing is shot to shit when I see Ewan Fate sitting on the middle step leading up to my porch.
I very nearly slam on the brakes, my brain somewhat hilariously short-circuiting at the sight of him.
He is thinner. A lot thinner. When I pull the truck to a stop, brakes squeaking in a way that somehow manages to be embarrassing, he stands up, giving me an even better look at him.
He’d had such a striking array of features as a kid.
Features that hadn’t looked quite right on a young face.
Eyes too big, jaw too narrow, lips too full.
He’d been obsessed with growing a beard as a boy and was irked when his body had seemed reluctant to grow any sort of hair that didn’t live on top of his head.
He no longer has that problem, apparently, as his jaw and cheeks are stubbled with black.
His face, which I’d once known better than the one I saw in the mirror, is so different he hurts to look at.
It looks like maybe both Amy and I were right.
Ewan Fate is back in town, but my Ewan Fate is probably gone forever.
Knowing I can’t sit in my truck and stare at him for long, I push the door open, wincing when the hinge squeaks.
The salt water is hell on everything. When I slam it closed, Ewan takes the single step down so he’s no longer on the stairs.
I’m struck once more by how skinny he is.
Do they not have food in California? Maybe Amy’s celebrity comment was closer to the mark than I thought, and he lost the weight on purpose.
I take a few tentative steps toward my house.
Ewan is both waiting patiently and blocking my path inside.
There’s no other way for this to go but for one of us to break the ice.
I try to think of something to say. Something Roy would say, preferably, because he’s smooth and witty and a lot better at thinking on his feet than I am.
If I were Roy, I’d say something clever about how long it’s been and how good he looks; Ewan would laugh, and nobody would be uncomfortable.
But since I can’t be anyone but myself, what comes out of my mouth is “Did you get my message?”